virus

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bronks

What happens to a bug that's been quarantined by your antivirus system and then you delete what's quarantined? I mean what comes in, doesn't get rejected back out again over the net...So where does it all go? Does it get broken down into unusable harmless fragments on your hard drive? If that's so, won't traces of it always be there? Same for the rubbish bin. Where does all that crap go after you empty it? For that matter, where does anything go after you delete it?
 
Quote from bronks:

What happens to a bug that's been quarantined by your antivirus system and then you delete what's quarantined? I mean what comes in, doesn't get rejected back out again over the net...So where does it all go? Does it get broken down into unusable harmless fragments on your hard drive? If that's so, won't traces of it always be there? Same for the rubbish bin. Where does all that crap go after you empty it? For that matter, where does anything go after you delete it?
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Remember those EtchASketch pads you probably have seen as a kid? After you write on them you just pull the the top clear plastic sheet up and all the writing dissappears and you can write over that space again. Sort of the same thing with a hard drive.
 
Those disk fragments are placed on a "free list".

The data is still there, but as long as there arent
any "pointers" to these fragments, they will never
be read and executed again, since they are not part
of an real file recognized by the operating system.

I know there is software available that will REALLY delete
all those free sectors of data, but I never bother.

It's not really a risk.


peace

axeman
 
Thanks guys.

So eventually, do all these fragments pile up on the hard drive? Does that do anything to performance, say...like a cassette tape eventually gets crummy after you record over it a few times? Apples and oranges, I know. But it's the only analogy I could think of.
 
Buddy, with harddrive sizes these days, and current access speeds, a few quarantined files are the least of your worries, that crap shareware you just downloaded with shotty code that leaks your ram is more of a treat to your performance than some dormant fragment.:)
 
The fragments are re-used, any time new data is written
to the hard disk.

The OS determines which fragments are re-used from the
free list pile.

You dont have to worry about the fragments "wearing out" like a tape.


However the fragments do become more and more mixed up
all over the disk, and this is what they call a fragmented disk
which DOES lower performance.


For example... when you save a 10 meg file to your harddrive,
the operating systems looks for free fragments on the disk.

It breaks up the file into thousands of these smaller fragments,
called "blocks", and each block contains a piece of the larger file
and a POINTER to the next fragment. It writes the file to
the disk as a bunch of fragments, strung together by address links.


So imagine what it takes to read a file.

You start with the first block/fragment, read the data, and
read the address to the next block, which may exist on the
other side of the disk surface.

So the harddrive is told to move its head to the other side
of the disk and read THAT fragment/block.

It follows this TRAIL of data all over the disk until it reassembles
the file into memory as a WHOLE.


If your files are broken up into a zillion fragments/blocks all
over the hard drive disk surface, INSTEAD of being in nice
clean continuous block, which does not require much hard drive head
movement, your performance goes to hell.

DEFRAGGING your harddrive shuffles all these blocks around
so they end up in nice continuous block on the disk surface
for each file.

This makes reading a file back into memory as efficient as possible.

I have software which defrags my harddrive every night
at 3am for optimal performance.

Just run your "disk defragmenter" software on each harddisk
at least once a week.


peace

axeman



Quote from bronks:

Thanks guys.

So eventually, do all these fragments pile up on the hard drive? Does that do anything to performance, say...like a cassette tape eventually gets crummy after you record over it a few times? Apples and oranges, I know. But it's the only analogy I could think of.
More...
 
Quote from bronks:

Thanks guys.

So eventually, do all these fragments pile up on the hard drive? Does that do anything to performance, say...like a cassette tape eventually gets crummy after you record over it a few times? Apples and oranges, I know. But it's the only analogy I could think of.
More...

You're just now thinking about what happens to the data on your hard drive? The answer to your second question is sort of yes. Hard drives don't last forever so keep your data backed up regularly and run defrag at least monthly.

IT ISN'T A QUESTION OF "IF" YOUR HARD DRIVE WILL FAIL BUT A QUESTION OF "WHEN".
 
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